


need you right at the door

by theseourbodies



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: (a very gentle farewell to a beloved show), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Episode: s10e22 Aloha (Goodbye), Sharing a Bed, Tenderness, untriumphant returns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-04-08
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:41:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23539276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theseourbodies/pseuds/theseourbodies
Summary: it is in your self-interest to find a way to be very tender
Relationships: Steve McGarrett/Danny "Danno" Williams
Comments: 17
Kudos: 165





	need you right at the door

**Author's Note:**

> Summary is taken from Jenny Holzer. 
> 
> Dedicated to palace, who introduced me to this show in the first place and who always, always, indulges me.
> 
> **I love a good procedural, and H5O was a favorite show of mine for a very long time. But support for this fictional show is not endorsement of the institution is romanticises. If you enjoyed this fic, or any of my other H50 works, please consider supporting bail funds and other support networks for victims of police brutality and racism. Remember their names.**

Steve leaves, and Danny just—doesn’t. 

He’s been living here in Steve’s haunted old house for the last year, and there’s no place to go back to, anyway. The house he had settled in a few years ago had still been a rental, and a nice pair of newlyweds had been happy to sublease it off his hands when Danny had made the decision to stick with Steve and Steve’s ghosts. 

So, he stays. He’s been a detective for a long time—it’s not the first time he’s been haunted by what another man’s lost. 

\--- 

Danny comes out of the kitchen, and Steve’s standing in the den. He doesn’t look different, doesn’t look travel-worn or full of life or sun-bronzed or anything. He doesn’t look any different, because he’s only been gone for a day and a half. 

Danny’s got a quart container of freezer lasagna in one hand and a beer in the other, and he can’t really muster up the gumption to do anything more drastic than sigh. 

Steve fiddles with the handle of the bag he’s carrying. It, remarkably, doesn’t do anything to motivate Danny to say something first. 

“The front door was locked,” Steve says with a jerk of his head and an aborted sweep of his hand, like he’s trying to explain. “I figured you’d have the back door open, still.” ‘Still,’ because it’s late summer in Hawaii and there’s no AC in this god forsaken house. ‘Still,’ because it’s only been a day and a half since Steve started his grand adventure and _nothing’s changed._

A day and a half since Steve walked out, Danny thinks muzzily and then hates himself a tiny bit. He’s still taking a dedicated regiment of pills—he’s past the strong stuff that makes him feel like he’s eaten cotton stuffing, but even the regular pain meds take him out in bits and pieces. 

“You left me the keys,” Danny says instead of throwing the bottle at Steve’s head or hurling _himself_ at Steve to do something embarrassing, like cry maybe. “You talked like you wouldn’t be needing them for a while,” he continues, hesitantly. He’s not sure why Steve’s back here, smelling like airplane and sweat, but he also doesn’t want to ask the question outright. It never works with Steve and anyway, Danny’s still exhausting himself just walking from the living room to the kitchen and not really up for fighting through open doorways. “You wanna come in, or you good to stand there until the sun goes down?” 

“I—Ok,” Steve says, and some of the weird angry tension in his face bleeds out as he drops his bag and stumps after Danny to the living room couch. “You got another beer?” 

\--- 

“Is this freezer lasagna?” Steve asks twenty minutes later. Danny’s not sure how to describe the way Steve’s slouched into the dark old leather with Danny’s plastic container of (month old but still made from fucking scratch, thanks) lasagna cradled against his belly. Danny gives him a nasty look from about five inches away and takes another pull from his beer. They’re in the middle of a slow argument, because Steve had gotten settled on the couch, looked up with Danny with a hurting, pinched look, and said “You didn’t try to stop me.” 

Danny hadn’t thrown the bottle at his head then, either, had just taken his tired old body back into the kitchen to angrily reheat another thing of lasagna while he got the worst of his temper under control. He’s so happy to see Steve and so angry that they’re doing this to each other again. He’d come back with fortifying carbohydrates and he and Steve have been arguing with one another for the last ten minutes, pressed shoulder to shoulder on Steve’s couch. The both of them too tired to be sharp with one another, so it’s just like very close, loud talking. It isn’t… cuddling, it isn’t weird—Danny’s just still got this ache in his healing wounds that only the strongest drugs can take away, and really, offering his shoulder for Danny to lean his weary body on is the least that Steve can do. 

They eat Danny’s Granny Edie’s lasagna (the one with basil) and argue back and forth in slow motion. Steve says, “I don’t know, I got your text and I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” and Steve says “I don’t know Danny, I just didn’t feel like going anywhere but back here,” and Steve says a lot of other things that don’t amount to what Danny kind of wants to hear, which is ‘I’m sorry I ran away and I’m happy to see you.’ It doesn’t hurt to argue like this, though Danny thought it might. It’s easy to slip back into a familiar pattern—Food and beers, Steve’s warm shoulder pressed up against Danny’s, the commentary on the TV murmuring softly in the background. It’s easy to forget that Steve spent the better part of the last week packing a tidy go-bag to get out of Hawaii and find something else, something new and clean and just for him. Peace, maybe, or more likely just some time alone. But Danny, he’s always held on to stuff, for better or worse. 

“So what about this grand adventure, huh? You were booked on a flight to London and then you were bound for parts unknown, I thought.” 

Steve picks at his lasagna. “I told you, I guess I missed you, too.” 

Danny thinks about pushing, thinks about finding the one weak spot Steve always leaves exposed when he’s telling half-truths and pressing on it, hard, until Steve starts talking. But he’s tired, wrung out, and if he really digs in it’s not going to be comfortable bickering anymore. It’s going to put Steve’s back up and Danny’s not interested in trying to corner Steve when the man’s just come back to him. Neither of them are at their best in that kind of fight. 

“I got worried, ok? I can’t exactly go off being free and unattached when I know you’re back here, still messed up.” 

“Fuck you,” Danny snaps mostly on reflex, defensively. He heaves himself to his feet and grabs for Steve’s half empty container. He can’t storm anywhere right now, but he does a very dignified shuffle off to the kitchen. He had thought they were both too tired to go for one another like this, and it sucks immensely that he was wrong. 

He hears Steve stumble off the couch after him, feels Steve grab at his elbow and hold on until Danny hisses through his teeth at the stretch it puts on healing skin when he tries to pull away. 

“Shit, sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t—I didn’t mean that,” Steve tries to tell him, stricken, but Danny can only give him a tight look and make his way back to the kitchen. They’re both exhausted, he knows—Steve’s apparently spent the last twenty-four-plus hours on a plane and Danny’s still fighting to stay up for a full day while he heals. 

“I’m sorry,” Steve says softly when Danny makes his slow way back to the living room. He hasn’t really moved except for where he’s swaying a little on his feet. 

“Yeah,” says Danny, “Ok. I think we both need to go to bed, how we feeling about that?” 

Steve relaxes and slumps a little to put his forehead down against Danny’s shoulder. “Sounds real fucking good, partner.” 

\--- 

Halfway up the stairs, Danny finally puts some important pieces together and realizes that Steve hasn’t told anyone else that he’s back. Steve’s unapologetically stripping his shirt off as he climbs ahead of Danny, and so he misses the exasperated look that Danny throws at his back. Whatever, Danny thinks sluggishly. That’s a problem for tomorrow. Right now, Danny’s just trying to make sure that both of them get up the stairs and into bed without critically injuring something. 

Ahead of him, Steve stumbles on the last step while he’s struggling to pull his shirt off of his head, cursing as he rams a toe and Danny thinks with a snicker, Eh, well. Nothing vital, anyway. 

Steve doesn’t say anything when Danny shuffles into the master bedroom behind him. He’d moved his toiletries and bed-side things in here in a late-afternoon fit of anger yesterday after Steve left, and he had been too tired by the end of the day to do anything but follow through on sleeping here. Danny’s too tired to do much of anything right now except skin out of his sweatpants and sit down carefully on the bed to start the laborious process of lying flat. Steve’s carefully packed duffel is still in the den where he’d dropped it, and Steve seems to realize this with a huff when he finally gets free of his belt and pants; his shoes are already abandoned with the bag downstairs. 

“Shirts are in the top drawer,” Danny says half into the pillow, more snotty than mean. “In case you’ve forgotten.” 

Steve huffs again, but he goes obediently to the chest of drawers along the wall. He still doesn’t say anything about Danny settling in on one side of Steve’s bed, but this—Danny in Steve’s bed, or Steve in Danny’s, or the two of them in some bed somewhere neither of them can claim—isn't very unusual. It’s just something that happens sometimes with two people living in each other’s pockets. Danny curls up with his back to the middle of the bed and listens to the familiar-unfamiliar sounds of another person getting ready to lay down beside him; Steve turns out the bedside lamp on Danny’s side without a second of hesitation, and then stumbles over to the other side of the bed and flops down with a deep sigh. Danny imagines the heat of Steve’s body at his back is a physical thing between them it’s so warm—a big cat or a sun warm cushion. The bed moves gently as Steve shifts and settles, and Danny knows without looking that they’ve arranged themselves like normal: back to back, protective and companionable, close enough to feel each other without touching. 

Danny’s so tired he could easily slip off just like this, but something keeps his eyes open, watching the wall in the weak moonlight filtering through the cracked blinds. He knows where to push, but Danny also knows when to hold, usually, especially when it comes to Steve. 

Steve finally shifts in the dark; Danny thinks he’s rolled onto his back. He feels something tug at the back of his shirt, but Danny doesn’t jump. He bows his back subtly and presses into the feel of Steve’s knuckles through the fabric. Sometimes comfort is easier to ask for in the dark. Danny waits, and doesn’t move to roll over, giving Steve his quiet, listening back. 

“I—I got off the jet bridge at the gate in New York, and I looked for you Danny.” Steve says quietly, finally to the dark and the heartbreaking sound of the waves through the cracked window. He doesn’t whisper. “I looked for you and you weren’t there next to me and I—I freaked. Had one of those attacks. Anxiety attacks.” 

Danny’s seen Steve have anxiety attacks before, maybe three or four times in the ten years they’ve known one another. He hadn’t known that Steve knew to call them anxiety attacks. Strangely, it touches something deep inside him to know that Steve does. 

“Right there at the terminal gate,” Steve continues, almost rueful, like _aw shucks._ Danny can imagine the look on his face. “I couldn’t’ remember why you weren’t there for a second, and I—panicked. When I got over it--” 

Got over it, Danny thinks sadly. 

“—I booked a seat on the first flight back here.” 

A soft sound betrays a swallow, but Danny doesn’t know if it’s nerves or tears Steve’s trying to control. 

“It wasn’t because I was worried about you,” Steve says, even more quietly, “or that I thought you couldn’t take care of yourself. You—please believe that, D.” 

Danny takes a deep breath and lets all the bad, painful shit lingering in his chest go with the exhale. He hears Steve breath out in tandem behind him, shaky with relief. 

Danny waits until he recognizes the waiting silence at his back—Steve’s said all he’s going to say, and Danny can look at him now, so Danny does, turning over carefully and without much trembling until he can tuck his nose against Steve’s shoulder. Steve moves his arm to let Danny roll towards him, but when Danny settles Steve’s arm stays between them so he can wrap his hand in the loose fabric of Danny’s shirt over Danny’s chest. 

“No more running,” Danny says, not a question and not a demand, either. 

“No promises,” Steve says tightly, eyes glinting in the barely-there light, but Danny understands; Danny gets it. 

Last night, exhausted and half-asleep, he’d imagined Steve coming home months from now, maybe years. He’d thought about how it would feel to see him again, finally, after months and months of bad video connections and dropped calls. Danny’s never been good at being happy, but he would have been, to see Steve again. This feeling isn’t the happiness he’d imagined; they’re not done talking about this, or arguing about this, and if Danny has his way they won’t be done talking about it face to face for a very long time. There are things he needs to say to Steve, things that he needs Steve to understand. But those are things neither of them are brave enough to face in this moment. For now, he can be content like this, pressed close to Steve in the warm dark. 

They can be brave tomorrow; for now, Danny thinks they can stand a little gentleness. 

**Author's Note:**

> I stopped watching H5O after season 7 for obvious enough reasons, so this is not canon compliant because I have not intention of watching S8-S10 and I definitely have not actually watched the finale. But this is an end of a fandom era for me, and I wanted to mark it somehow. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it, lovelies! Thank you for reading!


End file.
